Beneath the Face of Art
by Fireblazezz
Summary: Deidara and Tobi are entrusted with the task to sneak into the village of Konoha, disguise themselves as harmless tourists and pretend to settle down there and blend in among the citizens, while they are in reality gathering valuable intel on the village's security system. Though this mission might turn out to end up differently than expected... Deidara x Ino, possibly slightly OOC


**AN: The beginning of this story takes place somewhere in between the end of the _Kazekage Rescue Arc_ and the _Sasuke and Sai Arc _of Naruto Shippuuden.**

* * *

**Tourists**

_Deidara's POV_

"_But why do I have to do it?!"_Deidara demanded for the tenth time as he and his annoying subordinate Tobi strode through the forest, the blonde man crossing the moistened grassy grounds with grumpy stomps rather than casual steps as the two of them proceeded forward. The fact that the beams of the unnaturally hot blazing sun managed to reach them despite the shades of the tree crowns did not enlighten his mood nor his situation in the least: The air was so hot and humid that the environment had nearly succumbed to nothing but steamy fog, and there had been almost no trace of any animals whatsoever with the exception of a couple of chirping birds and a few insects; they must be the only animals able to put up with this tropical weather. Deidara wiped his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand and made a wasted attempt of loosening his black robe, which was clamming stubbornly to his back by now.

"I don't know, Deidara-senpai", Tobi replied gently, his ending tone accompanied by a snigger, and to Deidara's surprise and slight envy, his companion was seemingly unaffected by the tropical climate. "But maybe it is because you look _so_cute with that bang hanging across your left eye, so everyone will be like _aaaaahh_and stuff!"

"Shut up, Tobi, that is _not_the case, _yeah_!"

"Oh, but senpai, it makes you look _sooo seexyyy~!"_

"_Shut up,_I tell you, you goddamn idiot!"

The burning heat was tiring and had was thinning Deidara's temper by significant lengths, which was not especially difficult since he already possessed a temper nearly as hot as the weather at a regular basis. Tobi hiccoughed up yet another amused snigger instead of showing any particular intention of shutting up; the nonchalant side of him annoyed the hell out of Deidara, but he was way too drained of energy to bark at him now. "Well then, maybe they just admire your power of persuasion?" the masked man suggested with an absent-minded, yet thoughtful face, making him resemble a larger version of a clueless little child. "You'll need that if you're gonna sneak into Konoha as a spy."

Deidara snorted something inarticulate and made the decision not to respond, given that he had been told the latter a couple of times already by their catty strict-face of a leader: Apparently Pain had jumped to the ingenious conclusion that this would be a perfect time for them to set their plan in action and mercilessly dump the silly task of playing the role as a "spy in disguise" in the village of Konoha on one of the poor victims among the members of Akatsuki, thus exposing that particular victim – yes, he was talking of himself – to a _whole lot_of exaggerating work and trouble, simply to get some useful info of the village's security system. The sucky thing, though, was that the spy would have to act like a so-called tourist and a normal civilian while in service, to blend in better and thus raising the chances of a successful and worthwhile mission. And for some weird fucking reason, the leader of Akatsuki had picked _him,_and he strongly doubted that this trip would be worthwhile.

"This sucks, _yeah",_Deidara muttered as he moodily, despite the distracting heat, managed to land a fairly aggressive kick on a small stone whilst his foggy mind was being invaded by dark complaints about this whole thing; the words of which he didn't have the strength to utter stayed inside his head, faintly lending his brain assistance in restraining the blurriness that spread like a disease, carried by the non-existent – and highly desirable – winds through the moistened air.

"I think it's going to be fun!" Tobi giggled enthusiastically as his eyes slid to observe a butterfly passing by, though wincing in horror when the stone that Deidara just sent off nearly struck it. He was just like a child, and it frequently made his short-tempered partner nauseous.

"You are coming too, right?" Deidara demanded, and it was more likely a statement rather than a question.

"Well—"

"_Right?"_

"Of course, senpai!"

And neither of them spoke during the remainder of the journey. Unless you count Deidara's constant gasping for air, loud breathing and Tobi's melodic humming that nearly drove Deidara insane and certainly would've caused him to punch his childish and innocent partner a couple of times, if it wasn't for the excruciating, unbearable weather. The dehydrated ninja ultimately managed to compose his anger for yet a few hours, all the way until they finally reached the borders of Konohagakure.

"Finally there…!"

Deidara let out a loud resigned sigh as he stepped backwards to lean his exhausted body against a tall, thick oak whilst he abstractedly peered down the wide slope that led to the streets and residences of the awfully peaceful village below, the one which he, he painfully reminded himself of, was about to settle down in for a good while onward. And the fact that he, on top of it all, would have to put up with _Tobi_as well did not grant him any necessary encouragement; Deidara sighed again.

Realizing that further resistance and complaints were futile, the sulking blonde unwillingly moved his body from the supportive trunk and mentally prepared himself for entering. "Let's get to it, then.."

"No, wait!" Tobi unexpectedly exclaimed and swiftly grabbed Deidara's arm with such speed that he almost stumbled over his own feet.

"_What?"_

"We can't just enter the village like _this!"_ Tobi affirmed impatiently. "Don't you understand that?"

Evil glare.

"Just kidding, senpai." Tobi let go of his arm, intimidated. "But, seriously, we need to change clothes."

"No way in hell, _yeah,"_Deidara snapped. "If you're so eager to grope around dressed up like a clown, then you'll have to do that yourself, _yeah!"_

"No, senpai!" Tobi persistently continued, refusing to give in. "You have to do it too, it's completely necessary! Otherwise everyone'll recognize you immediately and you would get thrown out, or worse, killed!"

Deidara opened his mouth to snap back again, but he subsequently shut it whilst suppressing an aggravated groan; he was not fond of the idea at all, but he was well aware of the fact that an argument with a pigheaded guy like Tobi wouldn't do him any good. And it might've been the burning heat that prevented him from arguing back as well. So he half-heartedly surrendered himself, causing Tobi to squeal in delight.

"_Ooooohh,_great, great, great!" he squealed enthusiastically, bouncing up and down and clapping his hands to his cheeks. "Don't worry, senpai, wait _right_ here and I'll be _right_ back, I promise!" Tobi gave him several assuring nods before he abruptly spun around on his heels and rushed off.

Deidara scowled at the spot where his trails had disappeared in among the tall trees. "That idiot better not do something stupid."

* * *

"What the heck is _this, yeah?!"_Deidara burst out, aghast, at the sight of what Tobi had returned with in his arms.

"Our clothes, of course!" Tobi dropped their attires in a messy pile on the ground. "Here, look!"

He proudly displayed a pair of red shorts, a brown belt, sandals, a straw hat, a typical vacation-looking white cotton shirt with green palm-trees printed all over and a loose and thin brown leather jacket.

Deidara glared dumbfounded from the clothes to Tobi, and back at the clothes, his non-amused expression betraying blank horror and shock; he shot his masked partner a wide-eyed gaze. "I'm not wearing this."

Not accepting any objections, Deidara ended up wearing a pretty standard shinobi costume, one somewhat similar to the one that he used to wear in Iwagakure back in the days. To his mild surprise it made him feel oddly comfortable.

"Aww, you're so boring, Deidara-senpai!" Tobi wailed loudly, clearly disappointed about his partner rejecting his offer of the clothing that he had very carefully picked out for him. _Tobi himself_on the other side didn't pay a second's doubt to dress his own figure in the clothes of which he'd offered his partner. And as if he didn't look silly enough already, he'd painted his spiral mask white and dotted small, black cats with huge heads mixed up with red hearts on the surface. Deidara wasn't so sure that he would be able to avoid ending up ashamed of himself after all, given the fact that he would be left with no choice but to be seen in public accompanied by this light-hearted and impudent individual who possessed a needless to say horrible taste in fashion.

"You look ridiculous", Deidara stated with disdain. "Don't you have any shame at all?"

"I think I look gorgeous." Tobi winked playfully at him, sending an unpleasant shiver through Deidara's body. "And besides, it's not called being shameless, it's called being _happy-go-lucky!"_Tobi bounced up once again and waved his arms over-excitedly in the air, giving his audience the impression of a young bird that needs yet to learn how to fly.

"Shall we go then?" Tobi suggested when his adrenaline boost had finally run out of his veins.

"Whatever, _yeah",_Deidara muttered, and the two of them swiftly slid down the slope and in merely a minute or two they found themselves by the entrance gates of Konohagakure and the two tiny wooden stands underneath of which the security guards where waiting to check on them.

"Tourists?" a security guard with spiky black hair, shrewd narrowed eyes and a thin piece of white bandage wrapped across the centre of his face asked when they asked of permission to pass, and he followed by craving their names and identification.

They announced themselves as the passers-by tourist couple Deidei and Totoro (yes, Tobi inevitably came up with their names before Deidara got the chance to stop him, and with massive consummations of mental strength and self-control, Deidara managed to refrain from facepalming himself in embarrassment) that had made an abrupt break to stay put and reside in Konoha for a while.

"We've heard so much about your village and we would _love_to stay here for a few weeks!" Tobi proclaimed happily, putting up an admittedly fairly good act.

"Well, you certainly don't look like enemy shinobi", the spiky-haired foxface laughed. "The two of you may pass."

And so they did, and within a matter of seconds they were walking along the streets of Konohagakure.

"Lame guards", Deidara muttered, slightly disappointed by the fact that he didn't need to use genjutsu on them. At the same time he was secretly relieved that there had been no need for him to take part in that awkward conversation.

"OOH! Look, senpai, _look!"_Tobi suddenly exclaimed, and to his partner's mild annoyance he started tugging on his sleeves whilst pointing with his other hand all over the place at stands and shops and people and animals. Deidara wasn't able to discern half of the things that Tobi's jolting sight laid his eyes on as he continuously gasped in awe. "Dumplings! Ramen! Shops! Restaurants! _Girls!"_

Rolling his eyes and impatiently removing his partner's hand from his sleeve, Deidara acquired a firm grip of his wrist and forced the wildbrain of a ninja to settle down a few degrees. "Listen, Tobi, I think we should start with getting ourselves a room or something before we do anything else."

"Huh? Oh… yeah, of course.." Tobi agreed absent-mindedly without paying his partner any eye contact as he was distracted by a couple of girls that giggled and started whispering as they passed them. Once again, Deidara refrained from facepalming himself or at least slapping his stupid partner for being such an embarrassing craver of attention.

Feeling his temper thinning at a quick rate, Deidara impatiently grabbed Tobi's collar and rather roughly he dragged him along the streets to the outskirts of the village and as far away from the crowds as possible. In time they successfully managed to find an apartment to hire; A _big_apartment it was, but only _one_apartment – much to Deidara's disappointment, since he wasn't very eager to share his temporary home with Tobi.

"Oh, this is so nice!" Tobi sighed pleasantly with a happy look on his face as he cuddled himself down in one of the big green couches in the large living room; he seemed to have made himself at home as soon as he set his foot on the doorstep to the apartment.

"Yeah, whatever…" Deidara scratched his head rather restlessly. Unlike Tobi, he wasn't half as easy-going and he knew for sure that it would take a fair amount of time for him to be able to feel at ease in this highly unfamiliar room. "… I'm going out."

"Out?" Tobi repeated curiously, and his nosy mask shot up from the other side of the couch. "I thought that you hated the heat."

"I do", Deidara confirmed. "But I'm way too bored to stay in here doing nothing.

"But you don't have to do nothing!" Tobi pressed on. "We can play checkers!"

"No thanks", Deidara declined the offer without a second's thought and turned on his heels to reopen the door.

"Are you sure?" Tobi was surprisingly persistent. "I can let you win if you want to. I'm patient!"

Showing no intention of responding to Tobi's uninteresting offer, the blonde turned the doorknob.

"But where are you going then?"

"Out", he simply repeated, not even bothering to give Tobi a proper answer since he wasn't really sure what the answer to that question was just yet, and without another word he stepped out of the room and shut the door close behind him before exiting the building and returning outside. He was relieved to discover that a couple of clouds were currently blocking out the sunrays and that temperature had dropped a couple of degrees as of now.

As he began to walk, subconsciously starting to people-watch, he took some time to pay attention to the environment: The people around him chitchatted and laughed and shopped, and unlike Iwagakure as far as he recalled, the atmosphere enveloping this place seemed a lot more quiescent. Observation cut short, this village really was incredibly peaceful, something that he wasn't particularly fond of since he liked it when places where full of life and explosions, creations of his own in particular. But he knew better than to simply drop a bomb out of the blue in the village at a time like this… he would get busted before even getting the chance to shout out "Katsu", his probable favourite quote aside from "_yeah_".

As the bored ninja strolled down the streets, he eventually came to pass by an attention-craving clothing store and, just because he didn't have anything better to do at the moment, he stopped on the road to glance inside the shop window. They were displaying some pretty fancy costumes, he unwillingly admitted.

… It couldn't possibly hurt to just go inside to have a look, right? It was not like anyone part of this village's heedless population would take significant notice of him.

Deidara entered the store and stopped in front of a lined up row of mannequins, observing the fine garments. The people of Konoha seemed to have an acceptable sense of fashion, but compared to his unconquerable artwork, the likes of these were likely at the same level as trash, no doubt about it. As he carefully touched the sleeve of a grey ninja attire, he started to picture himself maliciously forcing Tobi into a clown suit while his marvellous explosive clay acquired the form of majestic phoenixes and exploded all over the place, sending the beautiful sparks of fire to light up the dark sky, and this pitiful clothing would prove to be worth not even half as much as his beautiful explosives. Deidara wrinkled his nose in contempt; no, this suit was not cut out for him.

"Hard to pick one, isn't it?"

The alien voice of a stranger startled Deidara as he was caught off guard, and he instinctively froze in his movement.

… Someone had just spoken to him. And on top of that, unless his ears were deceiving him, it was a woman's voice. Slowly he turned around to set his eyes upon the person, and for a crazy, mind splitting second he actually thought that he was looking into a mirror.

_Eyes wide, he found himself gawking at the feminine figure in front of him. __What the heck was up with this girl?!_ She was the spitting image of him! At least that's what he thought at first sight, but after he had gazed at the young woman long enough, he noticed a fair number of significantly large differences between them, but he was still quite stunned considering the fact that they, despite the number of details, looked awfully similar to one another.

He didn't know if the girl had seen it too, but right now, all she did was smile. Then her face seemed to tense up due to viscous realization and she slowly began to express confusion, and the next second her face was blazing with embarrassment, and she suddenly looked like she wanted to back up and widen the distance between them.

"Oh god, I'm sorry!" she apologized hectically, and Deidara had to admit that he had no idea why. "I… I thought you were a… a girl."

…

_Yeah, and I thought you were me._Deidara shot the girl a disdainful glare, somewhat taken aback but very offended by her lack of respect towards a stranger whom she'd never even met before. The girl seemed to realize what she'd just said to him, because she awkwardly lowered her head to gaze down at her feet.

"Uh… sorry", she apologized again. "That wasn't very polite of me."

_No, it certainly wasn't._Deidara wasn't really sure how to reply, so after a while, all he did was to shrug slightly. "Uh… no problem, I guess…" Snapping at a stranger in Konoha, a girl on top of that, would probably cause him trouble.

As he spoke, the girl raised her head to give him a nervous but assumingly relieved smile, probably because he had accepted her apology… or rather, sort of, although he was mostly disoriented and confused right now.

"So… are you from here?" she eventually asked, obviously wanting to break the awkward silence that was establishing itself.

A little stunned that the girl hadn't allowed this conversation of theirs to end, Deidara found himself at a loss of words as his brain was working at a high rate. "What? Oh, no", he blurted out without thinking, following by quickly trying to come up with a decent but at the same time cautious responding, since it was entirely out of the question to tell her about his _real_ occupation. "I'm… uh, well, I'm… yeah, I'm not from here", was all he that hesitantly ended up faltering.

"Thought so, because I've never seen you around here before", the girl stated as she arched a speculative eyebrow at him.

_Bet you haven't, since you probably would've recognized me if you had._

"… So, where are you from?"

Once again, Deidara found himself being a little confused but mostly annoyed over the fact that this woman didn't cease to ask him questions; if he would've been in her position, then he probably would've just walked away as soon as he'd told the stranger whom he'd just approached that he'd mistaken him for being of the opposite gender. For a short moment he actually considered simply leaving the girl in a vacuum, but he feared that doing so could wake suspicions; vague perhaps, but suspicions nonetheless, so he decided against that and chose to answer the question and try to cut this meaningless conversation short instead of acting rashly.

"Iwagakure", he eventually blurted out.

"Iwagakure?" the girl repeated with a couple of confused blinks.

"Yeah, I'm… well, visiting.. Or something."

That sounded really stupid and it came out a whole lot differently than how imagined in his head, but it was not like it would matter, given that he would probably never see the chick again.

"Oh." The girl seemed to be at a loss of words since she proceeded to once again glance down at her feet for a few seconds. "Well then, I hope that you'll like Konoha."

She raised her head to meet his sceptic and unsure gaze, and a polite smile unexpectedly curled her lips. "I'm Ino, by the way. Yamanaka Ino."

… Ok, so what exactly was he supposed to reply in this situation? Revealing his name to a complete stranger that he met barely five minutes ago was not even _near_something that he would even consider doing during normal circumstances. But then again he reminded himself of that this was not really a case of normal circumstances, now was it? Considering that he _was_supposed to act like a citizen of Konoha… and maybe this was just how a Konoha citizen normally handled a meeting with a stranger, although he found it fairly odd. But what the heck.

Then Deidara suddenly remembered that in this village, his name wasn't "Deidara" anymore, and he felt his gut wrinkle up in loss of self-esteem as he unwillingly opened his mouth and answered: "… Dei…dei."

_Goddammit, Tobi, you shrimpfaced moron!_He spat inside his head in disgust and contempt, desperately attempting to send telepathic mental curses across the streets to his partner. _Couldn't you come up with anything else?! Did you_have _to pick those names?_Though taking in mind what a limited range of IQ his partner possessed, maybe he shouldn't be that surprised.

"Cute name", Ino giggled, earning a perplexed gaze from Deidara. _Cute?_He repeated in his head. _Cute?! What was she, mentally disordered?_

"Well then, Deidara, I'll see you around. You see, I actually happen to run a store not far from here, so maybe I'll run into you some other time?" And with that, Ino turned around, waved her hand high up in the air and left the store, leaving a dumbfounded and bewildered Deidara to stand motionless in the store for several minutes, slowly progressing what had just happened inside these colorful walls. And that chick hadn't even bought any clothes…

He froze in his thoughts as he came to a very, very, _very_late realization: That girl for real thought that _he_was a _girl?!_ Just how fuckin' stupid can you get? For God's sake, not even Tobi had mistaken him for a girl, and he was practically dumber than a seashell.

He got temporarily frustrated, but eventually calmed his heated nerves and took a deep, refreshing breath to restore some oxygen inside of his drained brain.

But as soon as his anger had gone away it was instantly replaced by a fair amount of annoyance. Why did he even bother thinking about it, he would probably never see that kunoichi again. But why the heck were they so alike?

He forcefully pushed the entrance door open, causing it to swing itself into the outside walls with unnecessary strength as he at the same time began to ponder about the mysteries of life and the universe and its collection of mindfucking look-alikes, before he reminded himself of what his true purpose of being here was.

_Info-gathering… Jeez._Deidara let out yet another deep sigh and let his face disgracefully rest in the palms of his hands; his upcoming days during his time inside the borders of this village were inevitably to become a real pain in the ass, without him being able to do anything about it.

But he had no choice but to proceed to get started with the mission already, so that's exactly what he did; he and Tobi. Every day. Every hour, every minute, unless they were either eating or reporting the info or occasionally went shopping (Tobi was the one shopping, Deidara was merely the victim who was pulled along), the two of them played along with the mission and acted as innocent, though ever so slightly odd, citizens while they in reality constantly, slowly but surely, gathered the information they needed to eventually set their plan in action.

* * *

_Ino's POV_

"Hey, Ino", Chouji woke Ino from her thoughts as he spoke through the sounds of chewing on a large sandwich which was already halfway stuffed down his throat. The blonde kunoichi found him gazing at her as the two of them and Shikamaru walked down the sanded streets by the outskirts of the village.

"Yeah?" she replied.

"Just wondering… what were you doing at the Konoha Hot Springs yesterday?"

Obviously not expecting a question similar to the one she just got, Ino exchanged a confused gaze with her chubby teammate. "… I'm sorry, what?"She eyed him uncomprehendingly with perplexed turquoise eyes. "The Hot Springs…?"

"Yeah, and what's even more confusing is that you were not even _in_ the hot springs, but instead you were standing outside barking at some weird masked guy…" Chouji continued absent-mindedly as he was currently focusing on not choking on his greasy meal.

Ino didn't cease to gaze at him, mildly puzzled by this information.

"What are you talking about, Chouji? I was not at the hot springs yesterday", she assured him, and she was indeed 100% certain that she was correct. "I haven't been there in ages, to tell you the truth."

"Well, it sure looked like you…" Chouji muttered, loudly gulping down the food and paying his puzzled friend a weird glance.

"It did?"

"Yup."

Ino's answer lingered on her lips for a while as she gazed down at the ground whilst pondering hard on this. "... What did the person look like?"

"You", Chouji repeated simply. "But… now that I think about it, that person looked quite flat-chested for that of a girl…"

"_You moron!"_Ino raised a fist and a scowl at him. "I told you, _it was not…"_she trailed off in the middle of her sentence, as all of a sudden she was remembering the guy in the clothing store and how she herself had actually mistaken him for a girl, at least from the view of a distance. Could it have been him, what was his name, _Deidei?_Could Deidei have been the guy that Chouji had spotted outside the hot springs? But it that was the case, then what kind of business could he possibly have...

...

_... That goddamn pervert._

"... Ino?" Chouji subsequently uttered her name, a trace of cautiousness and barely hinted fear in his voice. "Are you okay? You look rather angry all of a sudden..."

Ino turned her head to gaze at her friend, erasing all the clouded dark thoughts that were currently corrupting her mind as she realized that she must indeed have been scowling fiercely without noticing it herself, because Chouji immediately withdrew to hide behind Shikamaru as she met his eyes; Ino couldn't help but to smirk apologetically.

"Sorry, Chouji, I'm not mad, at least not at you", she assured him as he slowly but surely dared his way back to her side with an uncomprehending look on his face. "But I think that I might know who it was that you saw", she continued slowly. "And it was _not_me, like you thought, and neither was it a girl at all."

She earned an ever more uncomprehending look from Chouji. "It was a guy?"

"Yeah, I think I met him in a clothing store about a week ago." Ino allowed her eyebrows to sink into a thoughtful frown. "And the guy I met then did actually resemble myself a lot, now that I think back..."

By now, even the usually quite non-caring Shikamaru was gazing at her, the only difference between his and Chouji's gazes being that Chouji merely looked puzzled while Shikamaru looked like he was working on a logical theory considering the whole thing. "That is indeed a weird coincidence", he eventually pointed out and gazed up at the darkening sky. "But, you know what they say: Everyone's got a look-alike."

Ino cast him a doubtful glance. "They say that?"

"No, but it makes sense."

"No, it doesn't."

...

A brief and short-lived silence enveloped them before they all burst into a during chorus of chuckling, which is always nice, no matter what kind of situation you're caught up in.

"Well, I gotta go, guys", Ino took a deep breath to compose herself and her laughter as she suddenly remembed something rather urgent. "Shizune-san told me that she had a mission for me tonight... It's probably something simple though", she added hopefully upon noticing her comrades' sceptic gazes. After all, it was getting rather late and the poor kunoichi was not particularly fond of the idea of being told to head out on a mission by this time of the day, especially seeing as she has had a lot to deal with already, excluding her shinobi duties.

"Right. See ya." Shikamaru raised his hand and held up two fingers by his forehead, something that probably was supposed to be a lazy-assed guy's improved version of a waving gesture.

"Bye, Ino." At least Chouji waved properly as Ino changed walking direction to her left, extending the distance between her and her comrades by every step that she took.

"Bye, guys!" Ino smiled, gave them a gentle wave high up in the air and watched them disappear out of sight as she herself marched towards the majestic residence of the Hokage and her subordinates, where she was going to acquire a mission that perhaps was a slight bit different from what she had been expecting.

* * *

**All kinds of comments are appreciated and welcomed with open arms! Grammar corrections, questions, constructive critique, criticism anything^^ Except for flames; we do not want flames here :3**

**P.S. Seeing as Ino's eye color is green in the manga but blue in the anime, I decided I make it turquoise in this fic. Please let me know if it bothers you.**


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